Welcome to Part 3 of our Web Site Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to create an automated traffic machine using the WordPress CMS platform.
In Part 1 of this series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to generating automated traffic …
(With an expertly configured WordPress blog, all you have to do to generate more web traffic is publish web content consistently!)
In Part 2, we focused on the setup phase of this process. We explained the best way to get started if you don’t have a website yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your website was built with WordPress.
(In Part 2 we show you how to set up a WordPress site on your domain)
In this article, we look at the configuration stage of the traffic automation process. We explain how to configure a WordPress site so you can get traffic automatically when you add new content on your site.
WordPress Traffic Automation Blueprint – Configuration
Finding ways to attract more visitors to one’s website is often cited by business owners as the greatest challenge they face online. With competition becoming increasingly more difficult businesses are researching any advantage they believe will help them increase their competitiveness online.
Being able to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a huge advantage over other competitors. With an expertly configured website, your business has an immediate advantage from the word “go”.
Configuration Is The Difference
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to take advantage of everything WordPress has to offer.
Here’s a simple way to explain the difference:
With a WordPress site that has been expertly configured you get a professional web presence plus an automated online business marketing system!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence with an automated online business marketing process!)
Not only does it take additional work to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expert knowledge.
Allow me to illustrate this with a story.
A True Story (Kind Of) …
All is going well in the widget-making plant when the machines suddenly comes to a complete stop.
As no one can figure out what went wrong, the floor manager decides to call in an expert.
Soon afterwards, the expert arrives and heads out directly to the control box. After staring silently at the schematics for what seems like 5 minutes, the expert then takes out a tiny little hammer from his shirt pocket and makes a gentle tap near the left corner of the control unit.
Immediately, the plant begins to work once more.
The manager is relieved as he thanks the expert, who leaves as quickly as he had arrived.
A couple of days later, the manager receives an invoice for $5,000.
Bordering on outrage, the manager picks up the phone and rings the expert. Demanding to know why the expert has charged them such an exorbitant fee for less than five minutes work, he then requests an itemized invoice and hangs up.
The next day, an invoice notice arrives on the manager’s desk. Upon opening it, this is what he sees:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is driving new visitors to their sites.
How much money did the gizmo factory stand to lose when the machines ground to a halt and no one in the factory floor had the expertise to fix it? Did the expert not have every right to get paid fairly for years spent acquiring the knowledge, skills and expertise that enabled him to quickly assess and avert a crisis?
Similarly, if you could have your WordPress blog set up and configured so all you had to do is publish content to it and search engines, social sites and dozens of other traffic-generating web properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would you save?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While the solution to many problems is often ridiculously easy in hindsight, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site is more than installing a website and configuring a few settings. It requires knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things like:
- Which plugins you need to install for certain things to occur on your site.
- Which third-party services you need to set up and activate to get certain results
- Which settings need to be configured in order to make sure everything functions how you have envisioned, etc.
(Driving web traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
This part of the WordPress traffic automation system is not so technically challenging, but it’s quite involved. This is because it’s not as simple as installing a solution, clicking a couple of buttons, or tweaking some options and settings in your dashboard area … it’s all this and so much more.
Expertly configuring your website involves the integration of a number of different parts such as your web server, your web site, and a number of external sites and services …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the activities involved in the configuration process, it would look like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine these areas in more detail.
Web Server Configuration
We’re not talking about the process of configuring your web-hosting account for installation purposes. We’re talking about tweaking settings and options in your web server specifically for handling all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your hosting account settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all web traffic is positive traffic. Some of the web traffic your business will attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This aspect of the configuration process, therefore, requires evaluating your needs, planning for both bad and good traffic and adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This includes things like configuring server-level spam protection and securing server files, to configuring your domain and email redirections, setting up htaccess and error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page error redirections, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these (if required), the next step is to configure a number of external sites and/or online services.
Configuring External Services
The concept behind adding external sites is that all content should be published from a central location (your site) and from there, it will automatically get syndicated to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
After incorporating these external platforms into your network, content linking back to your site gets automatically syndicated to these platforms. Your business will benefit from additional exposure online, helping your business tap into new sources of traffic.
Some of the external web properties and online services will need to be set up before configuring your WordPress site’s settings to help save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmasters – create a Google-friendly website)
Google Search Console lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for automatic page indexing, and provides you with useful data, tools and reports about your website.
Once your account has been set up, use your information to automate traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s performance, SEO, marketing efforts, sales conversions, and more, by tracking all user engagement, pages visited, keywords searched for, social media referrals, etc.
After setting up your account and site details, your account information can be added to all pages in WordPress using a plugin and and sent to many other useful applications and reporting tools.
Bing Webmaster Tools
(Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmaster Tools. After setting up your Bing Webmaster Tools account, the details can be used with traffic settings in WordPress (e.g. using plugins like Yoast SEO – see further below) and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers both a self-hosted and a hosted option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress option if you plan to build a professional online presence.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides some great features, which can be accessed by various WordPress plugins. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated traffic generation system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new visitors to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social media and social bookmarking accounts in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
After setting up and configuring everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and attract new traffic to your site.
Set up accounts and profiles with all of the leading social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.
There are many social bookmarking sites you can set up accounts with. You don’t need to create accounts with all of them, just choose the ones that will work with your system and/or content sharing tools.
(There are many social sites you can syndicate your content to. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Solutions, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of emerging web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as second-tier traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free plans, and some offer a range of pricing plans.
For example, here is a content aggregator site that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and visitors can follow your own RebelMouse website.
There are various technologies and third-party applications that can be incorporated into your web traffic system. Please contact us if you would like to explore some of these further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
After you have configured your web server and set up accounts with external sites, it’s time to configure your site.
WordPress Configuration
The first step in configuring your site for traffic is to make sure that its global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some of the important areas.
Configuring Global WordPress Settings
By default, your WordPress dashboard area includes a Settings section that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress menu – Settings)
General Settings
Fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Section)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings area contains one of the most powerful and frequently overlooked traffic notification systems available to WordPress site owners …
(Global Settings – Writing Settings Area)
As described below the Update Services section title,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you have intentionally configured your settings to prevent search engines from indexing your site, then your site will automatically notify the list of update services entered into the Update Services text box
By default, when WordPress is installed, only one service is listed …
(Writing Settings – Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically …
(Notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading
This section affects how your content gets seen by readers when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can have an influence traffic. For example, choosing to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content appears in RSS readers and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s choice to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your website or blog to view the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as your traffic system is concerned, however, the most important setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility check box is enabled or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving the box unchecked allows WordPress to automatically ping the list of update services when a new post gets published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason why search engines should not visit your site, make sure this box is left unchecked …
(WordPress Settings – Reading Settings Screen)
Discussion Settings
Although this section is mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your content, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalink Settings
Permalinks allow you to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(Settings Menu – Permalinks Screen)
Here are some of the ways SEO-friendly URLs can be configured …
(Configuring permalinks)
If you need help setting up permalinks in WordPress, see this tutorial: Improve Your WordPress SEO Using SEO-Friendly URLs
Plugin Settings
WordPress provides users with thousands of plugins that help to add just about every type of functionality to your website, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at examples of plugin categories and plugins that can help improve traffic generation
Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. Regardless of the type of business you run or plan to run online and how small you think your web presence is, you cannot afford to ignore the importance of securing your website.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from harming your web presence)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress blog invisible to hackers and bots.
More information:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
WordPress SEO plugins help drive more traffic by making your web content more indexable …
(WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO help drive traffic by improving your website’s SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your website’s SEO. When properly configured, this plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to index, it also gives you control over how your content is displayed to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and GooglePlus.
Social Sharing Plugins
Allowing your visitors to share your content with others online can help drive significant traffic to your site, especially if your site provides content that adds real value to readers.
(You can add social sharing to your website easily using free or inexpensive WordPress plugins)
There are loads of social sharing plugins available for WordPress.
Many social plugins allow you to choose which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up custom update notifications, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which users can unlock by liking your page.
Configuring WordPress Theme Settings For Traffic Generation
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help you drive more traffic to your site.
For example, in addition to options and settings for configuring the design and layout of your site, some themes also provide built-in features that let you improve SEO and site navigation structure for better indexing, add analytics snippets, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes allow you to configure options and settings for improved traffic results)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing features to your content is as easy as clicking a button …
(Many WordPress themes have built-in social sharing features)
Other Areas To Configure For Increased Traffic
Last but not least in the web traffic system configuration process, are the things that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include:
Legal Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for a growth in traffic numbers, it’s important to plan not only for both good and bad traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong when more and more people find and begin to visit your website.
If you do business online, it’s important that your website stays compliant with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Site Comply With The Law?)
For a detailed article on the importance of having a compliant website, refer to this article:
Post Tags And Categories
WordPress categories & tags help search engines index your web pages, which helps you get more traffic.
(Categories help search engines better classify and index your website, which improves traffic.)
As we strongly recommend in this article, your website’s tags and categories should be set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Phase.
When configuring your website or blog to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that your site’s post tags and categories have been set up correctly to deliver optimal benefits.
Site Map
A site map that lists all of your site’s pages and posts is not only a useful navigation tool, it can also help external tools find your site’s content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for traffic too!)
An HTML site map and an XML sitemap are two different things. HTML site maps provide visitors with a visual map of how your content is structured, whereas XML sitemaps are code that only search engines can read. Although search engines like Google will index your site just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO will create for you – see earlier section), making it easier for visitors to find more pages on your site results in increased traffic.
404 Page Not Found – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When visitors searching online for your website type in the wrong URL into their browser or click on an invalid hyperlink, they will typically be presented with a 404 page …
(A WordPress 404 Page)
A 404 page can be configured to funnel visitors to your functional pages …
(Configuring your 404 Not Found error page allows you to redirect web traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 page can be set up on your server, there are plugins for WordPress that allow you to easily configure your 404 page from your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Phase – Summary
Once your WordPress site has been fully set up and expertly configured, all you then need to do is post new content consistently to automatically begin bringing new traffic.
The process of expertly configuring a WordPress site, however, can be quite involved and elaborate and requires the configuration and integration of various elements and web properties …
(WP Traffic System – Configuration Phase Checklist)
The kind of expertise involved in expertly configuring a WordPress site typically takes many web developers a long time to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate as much of the process as you can. This step is covered in the next article in the series.
This is the end of Part 3
To continue reading, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping you learn how to grow your business online inexpensively and drive traffic organically with a WordPress website or blog and proven web marketing strategies.
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"I was absolutely amazed at the scope and breadth of these tutorials! The most in-depth training I have ever received on any subject!" - Myke O'Neill, DailyGreenPost.com
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